


The Road That Leads Nowhere

by FELover



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Family, Family Secrets, Father-Son Relationship, Growing Up, Murder Mystery, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Supernatural Elements, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5105135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FELover/pseuds/FELover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I ask them, Who are you? But they can’t hear me. Only mom can. She knows I’m here with her. I so badly want to escape the sharp pain, the tight grip and the stench like mud and animal feces mixed together in the rain, but mom wants me to stay. She needs me, she tells me without words. She doesn’t want to be alone.</p><p>My mother is dead; I feel it in my heart. </p><p>[My AU version of Robin's absence after defeating Grima. Except there is no Grima here. Robin goes missing, Lon'qu looks for her, and Morgan follows.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I ask them, Who are you? But they can’t hear me. Only mom can. She knows I’m here with her. I so badly want to escape the sharp pain, the tight grip and the stench like mud and animal feces mixed together in the rain, but mom wants me to stay. She needs me, she tells me without words. She doesn’t want to be alone.
> 
> My mother is dead; I feel it in my heart. 
> 
> [My AU version of Robin's absence after defeating Grima. Except there is no Grima here... Robin disappears, Lon'qu goes looking for her, Morgan follows.]

I’m in the garage, it’s past midnight, and though there is a fog clouding my vision indicating me that maybe this is a dream, I can’t help thinking that this odd sensation in my bones is too real to be ignored. I came down here, sleepwalked maybe, and got inside my father’s car, and I’m still here. Sitting in the dark.

I’ve always liked this car. It’s an old Land Rover. We’ve had it since forever. Since I can remember, at least. It smells like dust.

Mom told me that there was a time when they, she and dad, did nothing but travel the country with this same Land Rover. That was a long time ago, before I was born. They didn’t know where to settle, she told me.They didn’t want to. Being young as they were, just married, it felt like their lives had just started. Why stop moving? But in the end they had to kind of make do with where they ended up when they found they’d be having me.

I always thought that maybe it wasn’t appropriate - some of the stories my mother told me. But… I can’t say I didn’t like to listen. The way she talked of the brisk mornings far up north that she’d wake up inside a shabby tent that did nothing to keep the cold at bay with its five inch gash, how she’d curl up against my father’s side, looking for warmth, the chirping of the locals birds by the roadside and the grass tickling her face - it felt as if I’d lived it all myself. A little embarrassment every now and then - from listening just when and where I’d been conceived, for example - was worth stories like these.

Sitting here inside the old Rover, I get that same sensation when my mother sits me at the kitchen table and serves me biscuits and milk and starts telling me of when she was young. She always said I was more sensitive than the norm, but that’s alright because people used to tell her the same and wanted to fix her head for her, but she knew it wasn’t anything harmful.

It’s a thing of the heart, she tells me. Some are more open, some not so much. Don’t tell your father, I’ve always kept it a secret from him, but you and I are special. There will be times that you feel like somebody’s watching you, or you’ll be the one watching… Don’t be scared. It’s never hurt me; I don’t expect it to hurt you.

Up until this night I’d never felt the need to be scared. Most of the feelings I get - I call them feelings because I can’t find a better definition - are fleeting and soft. Have you ever woken up in the mornings and felt the brush of your hair against your forehead? Slightly ticklish. They’re a little like that, but I don’t know where these feelings come from. Or if somebody sends them. If this is the case, then it must be somebody very far away, or maybe there’s a veil of static obstructing the message from getting through complete.

The only thing I know right now, lost in this dreamlike fog, is my mother. I know she’s away visiting grandpa, but if I close my eyes I know - even before I do so - that I’ll see her walking down a dark path, alone. I know that something isn’t right, because my mother knows it too, but neither of us can react quick enough when the shadow jumps at us.

I ask them, Who are you? But they can’t hear me. Only mom can. She knows I’m here with her. I don’t want to be here feeling, as she does, the panic surging from a dark primeval place in us. I so badly want to escape the sharp pain, the tight grip and the stench like mud and animal feces mixed together in the rain, but mom wants me to stay. She needs me, she tells me without words. She doesn’t want to be alone.

It’s all over in ten minutes, maybe less. I knew it before it even happened, felt it coming and still I couldn’t do anything fast enough, saw myself laying there by mother’s side on the desolate road that leads nowhere. I know it before I open my eyes again, before my father is jostled awake by the call.

My mother is dead; I feel it in my heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Next thing I knew it was already morning and I wasn’t in the old Rover anymore. I wasn’t even in my house, surrounded by familiar smells and familiar faces. I was with dad at the police station sitting on a chair with one leg shorter than the rest. I had my arms tightly crossed across my chest and I yawned, tired to the bone.

I lifted my head only when the man across this small desk started staring and asking my father if I was OK.

We haven’t slept, my father told the man. What was his name, I wondered. I hadn’t bothered remembering.

It was true, what my father said, for the most part. It was true for him because he really hadn’t closed his eyes even just to let them rest. I don’t think I saw him blink a lot, actually. It was only partially true for me because although I didn’t sleep - as in, fell unconscious - I felt in a constant state of haziness. Most of the time I wasn’t sure whether I was just imagining the things that went on around me, or if it was all brutally real.

Of course, the man said sympathetically.

I didn’t like his voice. It was something very artificial, almost synthetic. Listening to him talk was like listening to recorded telemarketing calls, or like dealing with the cashier guy at the Pricesmart. OK, I knew he was doing his job. I knew it was his part to be shitty and phony; that’s what he got paid for. But I just wanted so badly to tell him not to bother; my mother was dead and there was nothing his overall shitty and phony voice could do about it.

There was only one thing I was interested in.

Have you found her body? I asked.

I felt, more than saw, the tensing of my father’s body after I spoke. Sitting there by his side, so close yet so far away, anyone would have felt compelled to step away from that foul air all about him.

The man from across the desk, the Family Liaison Officer whose name I didn’t give a shit about, shifted uncomfortably and planted his palms on the desk as he spoke to me, very slowly, like I was five and he needed to treat me as if I didn’t understand a thing.

We have no indications so far that anything bad happened to your mother, he said. We’re doing all we can to find her. I’m sure she is fine.

In my heart, I knew that my father wanted to believe these words. He wasn’t like me. He didn’t get the same feelings my mother and I got from time to time. Even if he knew this officer was full of it and disliked him even more than me, a part of him that he never let anybody see wanted to hope for the best. I felt bad for him. If only I could have explained to him what I knew… maybe things would have happened differently after we left the station.

There’s just a few things I need to make sure I do before I let you out, the man smiled.

He gave us pamphlets. Told us of procedures, names, people who were involved in the investigation of my mother’s disappearance. He asked my father again if he knew people that might want to hurt him or his family. To my surprise, when my father said that he didn’t know anyone that would want that, the officer didn’t believe him.

Come on, he said. We’re in confidence here. I assure you, as a favor, anything you say here-

I said, my father grounded out. I don’t know anyone that would want to hurt us.

The way the officer looked at my father, like he was trying to figure out his way around a tricky move in a chess match, made me wonder if maybe there was something my father was hiding. This feeling of ignorance wasn’t too strange for me, when it came to my father. He’d always been the unknowable type. But at that moment when I felt as if there was an unspoken secret hanging between us three, above the cluttered desk, it was a whole new level of uncomfortable for me.

What do you know? my father asked.

The officer seemed to debate with himself, wondering whether my father was challenging him to say whatever he had on him in front of his fourteen year old son, or if he was just asking about the investigation.

Nothing concrete, the officer said, settling for something vague enough, but with a tone of arrogance, as if he knew it all. It was a compromise with himself; let it pass and allow the stench of his crap in the open for a while, and then he’d be back searching for something more incriminating.

Have you questioned the people at the retirement home? my father wanted to know.

The officer was reluctant to say anything more.

As I said, he repeated, we’ve nothing concrete yet. But yes; we are questioning everyone who might offer helpful information. We’re doing everything in our power-

Yes, I know, my father said with a tone of boredom and exasperation.

I could understand that being in his position wasn’t pleasant in the least. Ignorance is like an endless field of darkness where, if you find yourself standing, the emptiness overtakes you. Blurs the lines of reality. Fucks up your world.

Look here, Lon’qu, the officer began again, but my father wasn’t in the mood for it anymore. Neither was I. Imagine how it was for me, sitting there, rocking back and forth and trying to ignore the visible bit of a picture that had partially slid out of a folder in front of the officer. There was nothing to be got from that sliver of picture, except for a patch of wet-looking earth. Mud. And a tinge of red in a murky puddle.

My father hadn’t taken notice of this at all, he was so focused on glaring daggers at the officer. But again, in my heart I knew where this place was. I’d been there with my mother, just a few nights ago. I felt a chill just glancing at that picture. I could feel it all over again - the cold sweat, the rain, the dark, all on my skin all over again. I was left breathless by that shadow’s grip on my neck… I was so distracted with these dreadful sensations I missed most of what my father had said. All I caught was when he was already standing and telling the officer not to call again until he found his wife.

Get up, my father told me, but didn’t wait for me to get out of that stuffy office.

Coming out of that room I met the same grey, weary faces I’d seen when first arriving at the station. There was a girl that I thought I recognized, but it was only my imagination. She was sitting on what I guessed must have been the most uncomfortable chair in the world, judging by the look of misery all over her face. I stared for a little while, as I passed by her side. She looked not much older than me, maybe two years at most. She caught my eyes and flashed me a sultry smile, all glossy lips and perfectly white teeth. She tried reaching to touch my hand but she forgot she was handcuffed to the chair’s arm and there was a small tinkle of metal against metal.

She was embarrassed for a moment, as was I, but she shrugged it off and winked at me. At this point I was almost at the exit doors. Awkwardly, I waved good-bye.

My father wasn’t exactly happy to see me sort of interacting with this teenage prostitute. He and mom had this unspoken rule about strangers and talking to them. This was not the same rule that all parents give to their kids when they’re young and foolish; this was harsher and more paranoid. I remember that when I was younger I used to think that we were on the run. It was only obvious for me to come to such a conclusion because my parents used to ask me all the time about my day at school. Who did I meet, what did they look like, what did they want and, did they have a car, did I see the plate number?

This was fun for a while. I felt like a spy, like an outlaw. I felt _cool_. I started wearing my shirts’ collars upturned whenever I could, although mom would always fix it again, despite how amused this made her. She stopped being entertained by this when a teacher of mine told her that I was violating school uniform policy, this during fifth grade. After that I only pretended to be some sort of criminal at home and with my friends outside of school. It was for the best.

The only other person who knew of the unspoken rule about strangers and the paranoia was my friend Owain. We had been together since first grade. We did all sorts of things together, talked about everything and anything. We formed part of a bigger group of friends, of five people, but even within groups of friends there are other inner groups. There was, in our small clique throughout the years, Inigo and Lucina for example. They were siblings and they stuck close to each other. They weren’t best friends by any means, but they lived under the same roof, so naturally they knew things about each other that didn’t need to be spoken aloud between them.

Inigo had this boyish smile that he always waved around like a red cape, wanting to tease girls into compliance. Just as it was natural though, he always got the horns. Lucina was perhaps his only female friend. But even then there was a wall in between. I knew that the distance had something to do with their father’s expectations of each, but even if I’d wanted to say something about it, the problem never seemed so grave that it actually merited my butting in. It was normal for siblings to have rivalries, anyway. And it’s not that I had anything against Inigo, but there was no way he could go up against Lucy to snatch away his father’s attention. We all knew it; Lucy was her daddy’s girl.

Then, you had me and Owain. We were friends in and out of school. Our mothers knew each other. And even though Owain was Inigo’s and Lucy’s cousin, it never really felt like they were related at all. I’d go as far as saying he was more family to me than to them. It felt like Owain and I were always together. Just the two of us, together apart from the others, and in some ways in spite of the others as well. So what if we got teased for acting like superheros or rockstars or spies? We were cool - this we knew and anybody who told us otherwise was jealous and lame.

That makes two inner groups in our clique, but strangely the third inner party consisted of only one person. There was a kid, quiet and introverted, whose name nobody outside our group knew how to pronounce. Yarne came from god knows where. Not for lack of trying but, we never found out where he used to live before transferring schools. We also didn’t know what to make of him. The only certain things about him were these: He was an easy target for bullies and we needed to keep him in our group, for his own safety and self-esteem. He was just so terribly shy, so insecure in all that he did, but quiet enough that we didn’t mind keeping him around.

Of all these people it was only Owain who knew about my feelings. Those fleeting sensations, soft and brief.

It was like this: I told him about the unspoken rule one day. The matter simply bubbled up to my lips, it was that easy to speak with Owain. We’d been at his house, inside his room, and I was toying with his magic 8-ball, trying to think of things to ask that I didn’t already knew.

That’s a bit creepy, Owaid said after I told him of my parents’ almost obsessively insistent questions about the people I knew.

I think they’re just worried, I told him. You know, like all parents are.

My parents don’t ask me about plate numbers, Owain said and I fell silent. I thought about this for a moment, but didn’t feel like questioning too much.

What do you wanna know? Owain asked and took the 8-ball from my hands. He seemed to trust that toy a lot.

I don’t know, I shrugged. It’s probably not gonna tell me anything I couldn’t guess on my own though.

Oh yeah? You can see the future?

I laughed at this. No, I told him. I couldn’t see the future, but I knew more than most. It wasn’t so hard actually, all you had to do was close your eyes and open your heart a bit. It was easy. Though… not so much really; just like trying to open a tuna can with a rusted can opener. A bit challenging, but it could be done.

So, can you tell me, Owain said, the winning numbers for the lottery?

I could try, I told him. I could get you numbers, but I can’t guarantee it’ll be for the lottery. Could be an address. A phone number. Or a date. It doesn’t depend on me. I don’t control what I get.

There was a moment of silence. Owain stared at me a little curiously, maybe he was waiting for me to start laughing and making fun of him because he was actually considering that I might just be serious.

Finally, he said, Woah, you’re not kidding? You actually know these things?

Well, I murmured, depends on what you mean by knowledge. It’s not like I can instantly know what it is that I see, or what I hear, or smell, or feel. It takes a bit to figure out. It’s not so hard when I get stuff from mom though.

Owain became even more confused by this last part.

I tried explaining that these foreign feelings weren’t always so foreign. I could sense my mother behind some of the messages. Things that came from her were… warm, loving, bright, but also a bit melancholic. It was a very distinctive feel. A personal identification of her heart.

Like telepathy, Owain guessed enthusiastically.

Yeah, I shrugged again. Like that. Except that I don’t hear her voice. Sounds, yes, but sometimes I have difficulty distinguishing sounds from colors or shapes, or movement. You know; images, motion.

That’s weird, Owain said. How can you not know the difference between a color and a shape? There’s like… a whole world of difference between those two things.

Well, I said. I guess that wherever I get these feelings from, it must be a very bizarre place. Where things are like that. Where you can hear shapes and taste colors, maybe.

Dude, Owain laughed. That’s crazy talk.

Was it really crazy though? It didn’t feel that way for me. Mom told me that some people had tried convincing her that she was in fact a bit nuts. Who these people were, she never told me. But she did make sure that I understood one thing. That we weren’t bad, or strange, or different. We were just, as she put it, more receptive and understanding.

It’s why I like your father, she told me once. I like knowing these things. It makes me feel more confident where others would feel hopeless. But, you know, it’s not so good to be a know-it-all all the time. For me, life is like a video game. Like I can see the stats and calculate outcomes, sort of… You never know when the RNG will be in the mood for something funky. Anyway, what I mean is, your father gives me that sense of mystery that I needed. He’s hard to read, isn’t he?

Yeah, I told her. Sometimes it was hard to know whether he was really there. Such was the silence of his heart. Did he even have one? Sometimes I doubted it.

Don’t say that, my mother defended him. Of course he has a heart. It’s just a bit hard to find at times.

Where could it be? I wondered aloud. It wasn’t like he could just reach inside his chest and take out the bloody thing, lock it in a box and throw the key away.

I don’t think you know what kind of heart I’m talking about, is what my mother said.

As I walked out of the police station and saw that no, the world outside wasn’t less grey than the inside of the building, I thought I finally understood what mom had said about the heart. If the heart were an inside thing, like the organ, then I wouldn’t have been able to feel my mother in the smell of dust as I got inside dad’s car again. My mother would have been nothing more than an inert piece of flesh, rotting away, still as stone and unable to whisper to me with soundless words of the clouds of dust that trailed after her and dad as they rode by an endless desert, once under a clear blue sky.

Put your seat belt on, my father said out of habit not noticing that I’d already done that.

I sat in silence hoping to receive something else, almost willing it to come back to me. But that wasn’t how it worked. I couldn’t just ask and receive. Sometimes I could go whole months without a feeling and I almost didn’t notice, but now that mom was gone I was desperate for scraps of her. So desperate in fact that I didn’t notice five minutes had gone by and dad hadn’t even started the car.

Looking at him, I got nothing. As per usual. It was a bit amusing how he could make himself invisible like that. He had this strange ability to turn the lights off. In my head I always had some kind of light alerting me of people’s presence, or other things, but dad could just flip a switch and poof. Nothing. Emptiness. Desolation.

Why did you ask if your mother is dead?

I was considering correcting him. I hadn’t asked it. I knew it. What I asked was, Where was her body? I didn’t say it though. I had a feeling it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. It might have been cruel, or maybe just plain stupid, but I didn’t want dad to know mom was dead just yet.

I shifted in my seat and looked out the window at the hard concrete sidewalk.

I don’t know, I muttered.

She’s not dead, my father told me. I’ll find her.

I bit my lips. I was tempted to tell him. He sounded so determined though. I wondered if he really meant it. And wistfully I allowed myself to believe that if somebody could find where she was, it was dad.

I nodded absently and rummaged through a dozen pieces of paper in the glove box. I knew which lists where old, so it was easy to find the last one mom had made before she had left for the weekend to visit grandpa at the retirement home.

Can we drop by the Pricesmart? I asked tentatively. To buy groceries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention; even though the tags say Murder Mystery, and that is the driving plot, this is mostly a family thing. A father-son thing. A growing up thing. A feeling out-of-place thing. 
> 
> Next Chapter: Morgan. A lot more Morgan XD


	3. Chapter 3

It was just the two of us in the isles of the store, or it felt that way to me. The people milling in and out were just a confusing buzz of static in my head. I held on to my father’s hushed presence. If I concentrated enough I could hear a murmur, like putting an empty seashell to my ear. That’s what he was; the ocean’s muffled roar.

Normally mom and dad would let me roam around for a while and if I picked something from the shelves they would buy it for me, as long as it was something small like socks or a cupcake. Sometimes chips and soda. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving dad’s side this time around though.

The groceries list was in my hand. I held it up in front of me and looked around, completely lost. Dad was just following me, pushing the cart. After so long buying groceries here you’d think I’d know it like the back of my hand, but it’s not like I ever payed much attention. Whenever I used to wander off, it was mom that called me back. You know, in that silent manner. That’s why I never got lost before, but now…

What does that list say? my father asked after several minutes just wandering around and still the cart was empty.

I read the list for him.

Milk - we’d be running out soon -, eggs, two cartons, potatoes, a protractor…

A protractor? my father asked raising his brow curiously.

I smiled faintly. I realized that that list might have been a testament to my mother’s mind. Inspecting it further I saw that there were other school items mixed with the vegetables. That’s how things were inside her head. It was kind of beautiful, now that I thought about it. My mother’s thoughts might have been sort of a mess, but hey. The stars are also a mess, littered around up there without a single care. But think of the constellations. Think that among that giant glittering mess up in the night sky somebody might find a hidden pattern and a story to tell about it.

The paper crackled in my hand as I clutched it tighter. It felt like I was holding a part of mom.

A pair of shoes… I said. I need a new pair. Maybe two. Mine are a bit tight now.

My father scratched his chin and looked around the sterile white all around us. We were at the dairy and frozen corridor and we both stood there not quite knowing what to do.

Alright, he finally said. He fished in his pockets for change but only found bills. He mumbled to himself trying to uncrumple them but gave up. He handed me one of the bills and told me to roam a bit. Fifteen minutes. Meet him at the parking lot after.

I took a few tentative steps away from that corridor. I looked over my shoulder at my father. He was just looking at the frozen foods. I decided to leave him for a while and looked down at the money he’d given me.

It was a one hundred bill.

What was I supposed to do with that? Any other time I probably would have been over the moon. Now though, I realized that what Owain and I had said a long time ago wasn’t so far from the truth of the situation.

Out of nowhere, I’d asked him, What would you do if you had a million dollars?

Owain whistled dreamily. I don’t know, he said.

Yeah, I laughed. Me neither.

A hundred dollars wasn’t a million, but it sure felt like a lot still. It kind of boggled my mind.

In the three weeks or so since school had finished I had gotten into the habit of not doing anything. I’d wake up with the remote control in hand, my thumb searching for the red Power button out of instinct, and turned on the TV, and just laid there. And I didn’t care about a thing.

I didn’t see the point. Why get up? The day went on as it always did without my help. The sun rose from the corner of my window whether I acknowledged it or not, and it fell just the same. What did I care for the world out there? Closing my eyes, everything felt too close. It was strange. The feelings which up until then had been nothing but abstract, ticklish oddities now presented themselves clearer than the perfectly white moon against the pitch black sky. I could really see things now, like the night that my mother died.

See why I wanted to get away? If I stayed in my room the walls gave me a sense of privacy - of detachment. The world didn’t need me to keep cranking on into the million tomorrows that would come, and I didn’t need it buzzing inside my head - like the shoppers in the Pricesmart - with its traffic and fast food parlors and smoke and summer parties…

What the hell was I supposed to do with a hundred dollars?

I had wandered into the magazines section. Focusing my eyes again I got fixated on an issue of Cosmopolitan. One featured article title read, _What’s Your Sex IQ?_

What? What was my _what_?

 _Find Out How You Really Score in Bed!_ it read under the title in smaller black letters.

I swallowed uncomfortably. Questions about sex around those days usually transported me to a different place, a different day, a different clutter of things falling from the nightstand in Lucy’s room after a pressed her too hard against it and neither of us cared that her house was full of people. 

Back then I hadn’t been sure whether I liked her so much. I only knew that the hairs on the back of my neck rose when our arms brushed together accidentally and that she smelled of peaches. I didn’t know whether my hands, trembling and restless, felt good on her, or if it was normal the way I’d gotten hard so soon.

Would it be OK? I had wondered. Would it be OK to put my hand over her breast?

Lucy had started wearing bras for some time now. As I kissed her, that’s all I could think about. What would those feel like, cupped in my palms? Would it be like her butt - warm, soft…

You can, you know? Lucy had whispered in my ear, kind of husky and sweet. Birthday girl.

Really? I had asked, my hands already wandering from under the first inch under her skirt, back up over the curve of her waist. Can I, really?

And that’s when Lucy’s dad had come in, wondering where Lucina was and everyone was waiting for her to blow the fifteen candles on her cake... Same as that time, I was rattled by an abrupt presence as I opened my eyes again

I don’t know if I suspected Mark since the first time he appeared. Thinking back on it now, it seems like I should have. I should have known better from how out of place he seemed inside the white isles of the Pricesmart. I should have seen that the face of this man was a 'don’t mess with me' type of face.

But when he grabbed the magazine with the article about sex IQ, whatever that was, and said, Hi Morgan. How have you been? I was more intrigued at how this perfect stranger knew my name without me telling him first.

Initially, I wasn’t sure he was talking to me. I glanced over my shoulders with jerky motions, looking for another person behind me that would just happen to have the same name as me. It could happen, right? Not this time. I knew that this man couldn't be talking to anyone but me, but that didn’t stop me from wondering.

Did he mean me?

Yes, you, he said. You didn’t change your name did you? Or is your mother’s name not Robin? Isn’t she a bit short? Taller than you, but you’ve been stretching up a bit. You might get to be even taller than Lon’qu.

Listening to him talk was as if I was hearing my own thoughts. He knew all these things that in the back of my head I’d been thinking when I put on clothes after taking a shower and realized that I’d have need of a whole new wardrobe soon. I’d been moving into bigger sizes for a couple of years now and I saw no end to it.

You do look like her, the man said. Like Robin. Shame. If you’d been a girl, you’d be beautiful.

I don’t know why I was so embarrassed at that. I just was. What if I’d been a girl, he was saying. I’d be beautiful, like mom?

Hey, he said and dropped his heavy palm on my shoulder and squeezed gently. I’m sorry about what happened to her. And I’m sorry you were there.

I froze up. Whatever words I was thinking of saying, like water that gets clogged by a bunch of crap or freezes in the winter, died halfway out my throat. I looked at the man’s face. He wasn’t anything special-looking. Forgettable even. If I tried describing him I’m afraid I’d end up describing at least half the world’s male population.

What do you want me to say about him? He had a face. And a nose too, and a mouth like yours or mine or my dad’s. He was just another person, but not really. No, because he knew something I had only told a total of one person in the world. And Owain wasn’t one to go talking about other people’s secrets. And I hadn’t told Owain of the night mom died, and how I fell with her on the mud and felt hands around her ankles that pulled her away, away…

I’m your uncle Mark, Morgan, the man said. I want to talk to you.


End file.
